It usually was; the reason being that the balls used with 'military' muzzle loading guns actually were of smaller caliber than the barrel bore. It quickened the loading procedure but if the gun was held, or aimed!, muzzle down, the ball would simply roll out.
It is the author's thesis that by ca. the 1540's, paper cartridges came in use.
Now the arquebusier, especially on horseback, would put the cartridge between his front teeth, ripp off the the ball, pour the gun powder in the barrel, "spit" the ball down the bore, crumble the paper and stuff it into the muzzle, to prevent the ball from falling out. Then he would simply ram the whole load home with the ramrod, prime the pan and was ready to fire.

In manuals such as Gheyn, the movement to put the wadding down the barrel is not indicated. I knew the difference in size between the bullet and the barrel: I attached a picture of sections of differents sizes of arquebuses and muskets in use from a manual of Cristóbal Lechuga [Discurso del capitan Cristoual Lechuga, en que trata de la artilleria, y de todo lo necessario a ella, 1611, p.71]http://books.google.es/books?id=gUo...epage&q&f=false

In another manual - hunting manual: "Arte de ballestería y montería, 1644" - the author explains the use of wadding/blocks of bitumen felt, but to shoot pellets. It's not the same, of course...

But it's absolutely logical what are you explaining about the need of use the wadding. Thank you so much

Quote:

I always thought there had not been musketeers walk to the 1560s

Oh yes, they usually had to. They were the infantry, after all, the foot soldiers.
It is only in those stupid Dumas movies about The Three Musketeers that you see them without a musket but always on horseback, or riding a coach instead ...

I meant so I had understood that the Musketeers were not as foot soldiers off the strongholds before the 1560s.